Six decades of recipes, stories packed into new cookbook from Dorothy Zehnder

View full sizeBrenden Neville | The Saginaw NewsDorothy Zehnder sends out a traditional German dinner, the second most popular item on the menu, according to her, inside the Bavarian Inn kitchen in Frankemuth.

FRANKENMUTH — For 60 years Dorothy Zehnder has been frying up famous chicken, dishing out buttery noodles and helping to lead her family to the top of the Michigan restaurant business.

Zehnder is 89-years-old and still works in the kitchen of the Bavarian Inn as many as six days a week. Now, she’s sharing more recipes than ever before along with a few stories about her life in the “Come Cook with Me” cookbook.

William Zehnder, son of Dorothy and William “Tiny” Zehnder who passed away in 2006, said his mother had gathered many recipes over the years and has always been willing to share them with the family, but he had been urging her to put together a book of her favorites for everyone to have.

“Besides being just a cookbook, it’s really Dorothy’s story,” William Zehnder said. Zehnder said the book, which took a year to put together, represents a business where three generations work together everyday.

“I get to work with her everyday and my daughter gets to work with her everyday,” William Zehnder said.

The Bavarian Inn serves as many as 700,000 chicken dinners every year, and millions of visitors pass through the building. The restaurant’s history on the Bavarian Inn website said Dorothy Zehnder has trained several generations of workers, including many young employees who had their first job at Bavarian Inn. Many of those workers come back and ask to see her and chances are good, since she’s there about 60 hours a week, they’ll run into her.

The book includes recipes that have been in the family and served at the restaurant for years but those recipes may not necessarily have all been in one place.

“I knew it was going to take an awful lot of work but I was real enthused about it,” she said.

Dorothy Zehnder and long-time Bavarian Inn employee, Lori Payne spent a year sifting through those notes, selecting which recipes to include and what stories to tell.

There’s a few spinach recipes, one of her favorite recipes for broccoli, and even a recipe for the lemon pie served in the restaurant. Not included is the restaurant’s famous chicken recipe, which has yet to be shared, though the process for making the large batches is described. There are stories about starting the business, and the struggles Dorothy and Tiny had during the early years, and about the lives of her children, William Zehnder and Judy Zehnder Keller, the president of the Bavarian Inn Lodge and Gift Shops, as they were growing up.

“When I first thought about it, I had a little eerie feeling,” Dorothy Zehnder said. “This is part of my life and I’m giving it away but as I got into it more and more, I got exited and didn’t have that feeling. I’m looking at it a lot different now.”

William Zehnder said his mom probably wouldn’t have put the book together without some coaxing, but said he’s glad she did. He also thinks his mom’s many fans will be glad, too.

“The book is a little bit folksy, but hey, it’s Mom,” William Zehnder said. “That’s the way she is, the way she’s worked with team members for more than 60 years.”“Come Cook with Me” is available at the Bavarian Inn gift shops and online for $24.99.